• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.401-415
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• 2017

A new higher shear deformation theory (HSDT) is presented for the thermal buckling behavior of functionally graded (FG) sandwich plates. It uses only four unknowns, which is even less than the first shear deformation theory (FSDT) and the conventional HSDTs. The theory considers a hyperbolic variation of transverse shear stress, respects the traction free boundary conditions and contrary to the conventional HSDTs, the present one presents a new displacement field which includes undetermined integral terms. Material characteristics and thermal expansion coefficient of the sandwich plate faces are considered to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The core layer is still homogeneous and made of an isotropic material. The thermal loads are supposed as uniform, linear and non-linear temperature rises within the thickness direction. An energy based variational principle is used to derive the governing equations as an eigenvalue problem. The validation of the present work is carried out with the available results in the literature. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the influences of variations of volume fraction index, length-thickness ratio, loading type and functionally graded layers thickness on nondimensional thermal buckling loads.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.99-110
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• 2018

In this paper, a new size-dependent quasi-3D plate theory is presented for wave dispersion analysis of functionally graded nanoplates while resting on an elastic foundation and under the hygrothermaal environment. This quasi-3D plate theory considers both thickness stretching influences and shear deformation with the variations of displacements in the thickness direction as a parabolic function. Moreover, the stress-free boundary conditions on both sides of the plate are satisfied without using a shear correction factor. This theory includes five independent unknowns with results in only five governing equations. Size effects are obtained via a higher-order nonlocal strain gradient theory of elasticity. A variational approach is adopted to owning the governing equations employing Hamilton's principle. Solving analytically via Fourier series, these equations gives wave frequencies and phase velocities as a function of wave numbers. The validity of the present results is examined by comparing them with those of the known data in the literature. Parametric studies are conducted for material composition, size dependency, two parametric elastic foundation, temperature and moisture differences, and wave number. Some conclusions are drawn from the parametric studies with respect to the wave characteristics.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.477-501
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• 2005

In this study, a new smart beam finite element is proposed for the finite element modeling of beam-type smart structures that are equipped with bonded plate-type piezoelectric sensors and actuators. Constitutive equations for the direct piezoelectric effect and converse piezoelectric effect of piezoelectric materials are considered in the formulation. By using a variational principle, the equations of motion for the smart beam finite element are derived. The proposed 2-node beam finite element is an isoparametric element based on Timoshenko beam theory. The proposed smart beam finite element is applied to the free vibration control adopting a constant gain feedback scheme. The electrical force vector, which is obtained in deriving an equation of motion, is the control force equivalent to that in existing literature. Validity of the proposed element is shown through comparing the analytical results of the verification examples with those of other previous researchers. With the use of smart beam finite elements, simulation of free vibration control is demonstrated by sensing the voltage of the piezoelectric sensors and by applying the voltages to the piezoelectric actuators.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.505-515
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• 2017

Based on the collapse characteristics of a shallow rectangular cavity, a three-dimensional failure mechanism which can be used to study the collapsing region of the rock mass above a shallow cavity roof is constructed. Considering the effects of surcharge pressure and surface bolt on the collapsing block, the external rate of works produced by surcharge pressure and surface bolt are included in the energy dissipation calculation. Using variational approach, an analytic expression of surface equation for the collapsing block, which can be used to study the collapsing region of the rock mass above a shallow cavity roof, is derived in the framework of upper bound theorem. Based on the analytic expression of surface equation, the shape of the collapsing block for shallow cavity is drawn. Moreover, the changing law of the collapsing region for different parameters indicates that the collapsing region of rock mass decreases with the increase of the density of surface bolt. This conclusion can provide reference for practicing geotechnical engineers to achieve an optimal design of supporting structure for a shallow cavity.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.517-534
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• 2019

In this paper, the effects of inevitable out-of-plane defects on the postbuckling behavior of single-layered graphene sheets (SLGSs) under in-plane loadings are investigated based on nonlocal first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and von-Karman nonlinear model. A generic imperfection function, which takes the form of the products of hyperbolic and trigonometric functions, is employed to model out-of-plane defects as initial geometrical imperfections of SLGSs. Nonlinear equilibrium equations are derived from the principle of virtual work and variational formulation. The postbuckling equilibrium paths of imperfect graphene sheets (GSs) are presented by solving the governing equations via isogeometric analysis (IGA) and Newton-Raphson iterative method. Finally, the sensitivity of the postbuckling behavior of GS to shape, amplitude, extension on the surface, and location of initial imperfection is studied. Results showed that the small scale and initial imperfection effects on the postbuckling behavior of defective SLGS are important and cannot be ignored.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.117-137
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• 2022

Effect of thickness stretching on free vibration, bending and buckling behavior of carbon nanotubes reinforced composite (CNTRC) laminated nanoplates rested on new variable elastic foundation is investigated in this paper using a developed four-unknown quasi-3D higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The key feature of this theoretical formulation is that, in addition to considering the thickness stretching effect, the number of unknowns of the displacement field is reduced to four, and which is more than five in the other models. Two new forms of CNTs reinforcement distribution are proposed and analyzed based on cosine functions. By considering the higher-order nonlocal strain gradient theory, microstructure and length scale influences are included. Variational method is developed to derive the governing equation and Galerkin method is employed to derive an analytical solution of governing equilibrium equations. Two-dimensional variable Winkler elastic foundation is suggested in this study for the first time. A parametric study is executed to determine the impact of the reinforcement patterns, nonlocal parameter, length scale parameter, side-t-thickness ratio and aspect ratio, elastic foundation and various boundary conditions on bending, buckling and free vibration responses of the CNTRC plate.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.5
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• pp.651-664
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• 2022

A precise prediction of the ultimate bond strength between rebar and surrounding concrete plays a major role in structural design, as it effects the load-carrying capacity and serviceability of a member significantly. In the present study, Gaussian models are employed for modelling bond strength of ribbed steel bars embedded in concrete. Gaussian models offer a non-parametric method based on Bayesian framework which is powerful, versatile, robust and accurate. Five different Gaussian models are explored in this paper-Gaussian Process (GP), Variational Heteroscedastic Gaussian Process (VHGP), Warped Gaussian Process (WGP), Sparse Spectrum Gaussian Process (SSGP), and Twin Gaussian Process (TGP). The effectiveness of the models is also evaluated in comparison to the numerous design formulae provided by the codes. The predictions from the Gaussian models are found to be closer to the experiments than those predicted using the design equations provided in various codes. The sensitivity of the models to various parameters, input feature space and sampling is also presented. It is found that GP, VHGP and SSGP are effective in prediction of the bond strength. For large data set, GP, VHGP, WGP and TGP can be computationally expensive. In such cases, SSGP can be utilized.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.271-277
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• 2023

This article investigates the effect of viscoelastic foundations on the waves' dispersion in a beam made of ceramic-metal functionally graded material (FGM) with microstructural defects. The beam is considered to be shear deformable, and a simple three-unknown sinusoidal integral higher-order shear deformation beam theory is applied to represent the beam's displacement field. Novel to this study is the investigation of the impact of viscosity damping on imperfect FG beams, utilizing a few-unknowns theory. The stresses and strains are obtained using the two-dimensional elasticity relations of FGM, neglecting the normal strain in the beam's depth direction. The variational operation is employed to define the dispersion relations of the FGM beam. The influences of the material gradation exponent, the beam's thickness, the porosity, and visco-Pasternak foundation parameters are represented. Results showed that phase velocity was inversely proportional to the damping and porosity of the beams. Additionally, the foundation viscous damping had a stronger influence on wave velocity when porosity volume fractions were low.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.393-398
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• 2023

This paper provides the free vibrations of chiral carbon nanotubes. The governing equations of Flügge theory is considered for vibration frequencies of chiral single walled carbon nanotubes. The solution of frequency equation is obtained from a novel model for better representation of stubby and short vibration characteristics of chiral tubes with clamped-clamped and clamped-simply supported end conditions. For the harmonic response of this tube, the model displacement function is adopted. The variational approach Rayleigh-Ritz method with kinetic and strain energies are used. The Lagragian function is differentiated with respect to unknown functions. The frequency equation is written in compact form to solve with MATLAB software. The frequencies of chiral SWCNTs for first ten aspect ratios as small level are investigated. The results shown as for decreasing the aspect rations, the frequencies are increases. The presented results of this model are verified with experimental and numerical results, which found as an excellent agreement.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.75-91
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• 2024

Reliable wind signal reconstruction can be beneficial to the operational safety of long-span bridges. Non-Gaussian characteristics of wind signals make the reconstruction process challenging. In this paper, non-Gaussian wind signals are converted into a combined prediction of two kinds of features, actual wind speeds and wind angles of attack. First, two decomposition techniques, empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and variational mode decomposition (VMD), are introduced to decompose wind signals into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) to reduce the randomness of wind signals. Their principles and applicability are also discussed. Then, four artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are utilized for wind signal reconstruction by combining the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm with back propagation neural network (BPNN), support vector regression (SVR), long short-term memory (LSTM) and bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM), respectively. Measured wind signals from a bridge site in a deep-cutting gorge are taken as experimental subjects. The results showed that the reconstruction error of high-frequency components of EMD is too large. On the contrary, VMD fully extracts the multiscale rules of the signal, reduces the component complexity. The combination of VMD-PSO-Bi-LSTM is demonstrated to be the most effective among all hybrid models.